Marsicano: A Call to Inaction
I’m writing this to the activists who are considering joining a Greek house or holding Greek leadership positions to promote “change from within” the system. My advice to you: don’t.
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I’m writing this to the activists who are considering joining a Greek house or holding Greek leadership positions to promote “change from within” the system. My advice to you: don’t.
Congratulations! Getting here can’t have been easy — from the college applications process to sticking out senior spring to literally winding your way through the woods on your drive to Dartmouth, it’s been a long road. Now that your freshman fall is around the corner, it’s time to get pumped for all the wonder ful experiences ahead: new people, countless oppor tunities and an amazing academic experience are all near on the horizon.
It could take 10 weeks, six months, maybe two years. That’s the thing with mental health — you can never predict with certainty when, how or even if healing will take place.
Every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night, I know exactly where and how to find potential hook-ups or even partners — I just drop by Webster Avenue sometime around 10 or 11 p.m. There, I can find basements full of men, with whom I can dance, join a quick game of pong or two and maybe even go to formal in future terms. My status as a white, affiliated, cisgender, heterosexual female has radically simplified my search for sex and romance on campus. For many queer students at the College, however, this isn’t necessarily the case.
We’ve all seen the diversity statistics on Dartmouth’s website, boasting that our peers come from 50 states and 79 countries. But with all those different backgrounds and cultures, why, when you look around, does everyone sound the same? You’d be hard-pressed to overhear a conversation that didn’t include at least one use of “facetime,” “schmob” or “FoCo.” But this trend goes beyond our quirky vocabulary. It’s not just what we say that’s strikingly similar, but also how we say it. Given Dartmouth’s diverse representation of countries and regions of the U.S., we’re forced to wonder — where is the linguistic diversity?
If there’s one lesson “Mean Girls” taught me, it’s how to do Halloween like a champ — just add animal ears. This rule of thumb has brought me consistent success (recent hits include “sexy cat” and “sexy Mickey Mouse from ‘Fantasia’”) but my overwhelming lack of creativity just doesn’t do it for everyone, and I get that. On Halloween, we dress to scare, amuse and impress, sometimes all at once, and the rules that dictate our daily attire disappear.
Megan Batangan'18:
With commencement drawing near, many soon-to-be graduates are asking the question, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?” But a handful of students have popped a different, life-changing question: “Will you marry me?”
Ladies, if you want to defend yourself against a male sexual aggressor, you have exactly two options: grab him by the genitals and twist, or gouge out his eyes. Well, that’s what Safety and Security sergeant Rebel Roberts was instructed back in her own college days, and the advice didn’t sit well with her. Roberts recognized that while these certainly were two options, they were by no means the only two. And Roberts worried the this-or-that presentation horrified and alienated many of the other women in the room.
As a student body, we have no shortage of opinions about politically sensitive and polarizing topics. Yet religion, however controversial a subject, has been largely absent from campus conversation. So let’s talk about faith. In talking to many students across the spectrum of religious backgrounds, I’ve realized some things: Dartmouth has the resources for students who want to live a religious lifestyle. Many students at Dartmouth shy away from talking openly about their religious beliefs. And some students who adhere to more conservative and devout spectrums of their religion find it hard to harmonize aspects of campus social life with the tenets of their faith. These factors combine to pull some of us closer to our religions, while others of us drift farther away.
The email came last Friday afternoon with a clear message and simple instructions. “All students in residence are required to officially check-in online,” it read, providing a one-click path to Banner Student. After the first deadline on Wednesday, students could still check in with a $50 late fee tacked on. Until checking in, students cannot receive credit for classes and may even face administrative withdrawal.
At Dartmouth, life moves at breakneck speed. We’re booked by the hour, sleeping in the stacks and studying in the KAF line, but as long as things go according to plan, we manage.
Half of me expected Dragon’s Gate Tattoo Studio to be filled with the sounds of heavy metal and the smell of cigarette smoke — the other half secretly hoped I’d be walking to some sci-fi, fantasy tattoo wonderland.